The last Kill
by Luna di Sangue
Summary: Based of Ruroni Kenshin. Nakomachi Saburo is Japan's best asasin during the Bakamatsu period what they don't know is that she's a girl. What happens when she meets someone that could change her whole life. IT IS ONLY BASED OFF Ruroni Kenshin.


_This is a short story I had to do for english. It's kind of based off Ruroni Kenshin so yeah. I'm not sure where else to put it_. _Our task was to find a picture and right a story from the picture. _

_Enjoy and please review._

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It is dark tonight in Kyoto. The only light comes from the large snow white full moon. The only sound comes from the cicadas. Suddenly the peace is broken by the sound of footsteps, the next minute two small lights come into sight, bobbing up and down and occasionally disappearing. As they come closer we see that the lights are attached to two men. They have been out celebrating. Their loud, clear voices are a clear contrast to the previously quiet and peaceful night. As they continue walking and joking they do not notice the shadow sneaking up behind them. They come to a pause in the conversation and the silence once again takes over. There is the sudden, unmistakable hiss of a sword being drawn from its sheath and seconds later their bodies lie on the ground with a puddle of crimson blood slowly spreading from beneath them. As the moon's reflection can be seen in a growing puddle of blood, the shadow turns and walks away without a sound.

As I walk away from my latest and last assignment one part of me is glad that it is all over, and happy that I chose this path. The other smaller part counts them as number 4999 and the other 5000 and says job well done. Strangely, I feel slightly sad that it is over because these last few years have been ones I shall remember for a very long time.

My name is Nakomachi Sabu-ru , Saber when translated to Latin, however I am known by most as Hitokiri Raikou. (Lightning the Manslayer) I get the name from the speed I move and kill at. I am Japan's best, youngest (being only 15) and most dangerous assassin. Since 1853 there have been major conflicts between the revolutionists that want Japan to become one with the rest of the world and everyone else who want Japan to stay isolated. These last few years have been called the Bakumatsu. I am one of the many assassins working for the revolutionists. Those two were just some of the many that have and will be killed because they oppose the revolution. I could rattle on about these years for ages but that is not my story to tell. What I'm about to tell you is the story about the last few months and the choice I had to make....

First, a little about me. I can't remember the name my parents gave me. They died when I was three, murdered right in front of my eyes by a group of bandits. The last thing I see is my mother telling me something but I don't know what. Somehow I managed to escape but I shall never forget what I saw that night. After several days, I was found and taken in by a man. He was a master swordsman and fighter. He soon adopted me as his daughter and started training me to fight with and without a weapon the day I turned four. I had asked him to train me and I knew what I'd have to go through, so it didn't come as much of a shock. One day, when I was 10, I was sent to a nearby city where I protected a woman who was being bullied and abused by a group of men. It was there that a man saw me, this man was one of the many leaders of one of the many revolutionist groups. He asked me to work for him. I agreed. I have ended roughly five thousand people since then.

My story starts around 2 months ago. Every afternoon I would be told who I had to kill that night. Generally it was between two and six a night. That day I was told to kill only two people the first was a man of little importance, however he had done something offensive to one of the revolutionist leaders so he had to be killed. The second became one of the most important people in my life. His name was Akahiko Kikumaru and he was someone with a big connection to my past, little did I know just how much. So, that night as always I left head quaters and went to find them. It wasn't difficult to find and kill the first. It was getting late and I was searching for the second man when I felt something. Someone was following me. Once I'd figured out it was, it wasn't difficult to find a way to come out behind him. "What's your name and why are you following me?" The man slowly turned and shakily replied, "I'm following you, because I knew you were going to be sent to kill me. You have killed seven people from my organization, it wasn't hard to figure out I'd be next." I hadn't know for sure who the person following me would be hut some part of me had already know this. "I have no intention of dying to night even if I am facing Hitikiri Raikou." As soon as he'd said that our swords were out.

For the first time in five years I didn't feel like just killing someone straight away. I started testing him, asking him questions about sword fighting, checking his footwork and doing unexpected movements. At one point I jumped onto a roof so that I could have better light and he tried to follow. He wasn't able to jump all the way up and had to grab the roof to pull himself up. As he jumped, his hat came off and we both stopped and stared at each other. In front of me was a mirror image of myself! The only differences were our eyes and our gender. Staring back at my gold ones were surprised, purple colored eyes. "You look just like me! Who are you?" we both shouted in unison.

After about two minutes of staring at each other. We recovered and he suddenly blurted out, "The famous Hitokiri Sa-buru is actually a girl! I bet the whole country would have a shock if that got out."

My eyes must have changed color (for some reason, whenever I am angry, extremely sad or whenever I hold my special sword Raikou Kira (Lightning killer) my eyes change from gold to blood red. The brighter they are, the angrier I am,) because his expression seemed to freeze and he said, "All right, I won't breathe a word to anyone, just don't kill me. Why do you look so much like me?"

"I could ask you the same thing." I replied curtly. After a few minutes we were able to come up with a plan. He would leave Kyoto and change his appearance, everyone would think he was dead. I would go back to headquarters and act like I always did. On the weekend I'd be having a day off so I would go and join him and we would figure out exactly how we were related.

I went back as planned and no one suspected a thing. Everyone presumed that I'd killed him, seeing as I'd never failed before. When Friday came, I said goodbye and then left. It wasn't very difficult to find Akahiko and when I did, it took a while till we started talking normally to each other. After at least two hours of talking about our family, past and everyone in our memories that looked relatively like the other in great detail, we managed to find out something very strange. He was my twin brother. I hadn't remembered a thing about him because I thought he'd been killed the same night as my parents. Probably, the horror of seeing my parents killed must have made me forget about many things, including him.

Evidently it was clear that he was shocked to find out that his younger sister was Japan's most feared assassin but after I explained everything that had happened to me he seemed to understand, until we had this conversation.

"Oh I see", he finally said. "You wanted to become a fighter so that you'd be able to protect yourself and others. Then what are you doing now?"

When I asked him what he meant by that, he said.

"I mean being an assassin. How is that protecting anyone?"

I was rather irritated now and I replied that I was doing it for the good of Japan and that I was helping to protect the government.

" But you yourself said that you wanted to protect the weak and innocent. That is not what you're doing."

While this was sinking in, he changed the subject and said it was probably best if I go before anybody got suspicious. Before I left, the last thing he said was "Think about it."

The next week I couldn't keep that conversation out of my mind. It was always there, it never went away. It was joined by other snippets and memories of my past. One night I woke up drenched in sweat from a nightmare where all those I'd killed came back to life. They kept screaming my name and saying "You killed us. Why did you kill us?" I couldn't get back to sleep and the next day I was even more bad-tempered and angry then usual. Anyone who was stupid or brave enough to ignore all the leave-me-alone-if-you-want-to-live signs, would never be the same again. One evening, I went out for a walk, without realizing where I was going I ended up in a graveyard. It was starting to rain and there wasn't anyone around.

As I walked around the quiet graveyard, I started thinking about all the people who were in here. _ How many of them had been innocent people who had died because of a different opinion? How many of them had died because they were unable to protect themselves? How many of them had been killed by me? _

That night I was sent on another assignment. By then I had decided what I would choose to do. I agreed to the assignment as it would be my last contribution towards the revolution and all those who I had helped and who I had worked with. After this I would be free to choose my own path.

It is dark tonight in Kyoto. The only light comes from the large snow white full moon. The only sound comes from the cicadas. Suddenly the peace is broken by the sound of footsteps, the next minute two small lights come into sight, bobbing up and down and occasionally disappearing. As they come closer we see that the lights are attached to two men. Their loud voices a clear contrast to the previously quiet and peaceful night. As they continue walking and joking they do not notice the shadow sneaking up behind them. As I crept up behind the two, I couldn't help but hear what they were saying. They were drunk and one of them was telling the other about his wife being pregnant. She would soon become one more person in this world who hated me. As they stopped talking an uncomfortable, eerie silence began to take over the area as if it was waiting for me to do something.


End file.
